


The Days That Are(n't) Bad

by amandaskankovich



Category: Dollhouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 12:33:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/862076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amandaskankovich/pseuds/amandaskankovich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You remember," She asked him ,"that I’m not your mother?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Days That Are(n't) Bad

There are the bad days, when he talks too much, the words spilling out of his mouth so quick, his poor, brilliant, broken mind can barely catch up to their meaning— just barely. The words with their sheer bristling, nauseating reality; all the memories they bring with them. They catch up and they dig into his brain (and so smart, he’s still so very smart, still the smartest person in the room, but no longer able to take it, the weight of it now with the added belief that he’s the scariest, guiltiest one too.)

 

The meaning’s there and he grasps it and the aftermath she gets to see it. The poor boy collapsing into himself with this horrible knowledge. So big and just so very true that even he can understand it. Sometimes he forgets his own name and (less often) her name. Never her face, his sweaty palms against her cheeks, his delicate features searching and searching. She’s a word, a thought, right there on the tip of his tongue, fading, fading, but not…quite…gone.

This could be one of the bad days but it’s really too soon to tell.

She had her own room for a day a pallet made up in her office. But every night to get him to sleep they’d have to sedate him and she had always been insistent that that be a last resort. Dr. Saunders had pointed out that the pods still had enough of the sleep cocktail simmering in their systems to last a few more weeks…the idea of closing Topher up every night in one of those cases…she dry heaved a little and said "…no. That won’t be necessary." She had her own room for a day in her office. Then Tony and Priya did. Then just Priya.

At night he’d bury his head into her lap, mumbling facts and apologies and meaningless ramblings with brilliant insight, and she’d read to him, “Mrs. Darling screamed, and, Nana entered, returned from her evening out. She growled and sprang at the boy, who leapt lightly through the window. Again Mrs. Darling screamed, this time in distress for him…"

When for whatever reason a story wouldn’t do, she talked to him, just talked. Sometimes he followed, but mainly he claimed to like the lilt of her voice, “With no script, there’s no script. Just you off the record unplugged. Tell me your life. You had a life, before this, before me. I made the sky fall down and where were you Chicken Little?"

So she told him about boarding school and horseback riding lessons and piano lessons, violen lessons—because of course, of course, she’d had all these things—

"I fell off the horse my second lesson," She told him, “and broke my wrist."

"And that," he mumbled drooling a little into her lap, “was that."

"No," she told him, “not for my parents, no. I went on to win…what was it? Eight competitions?"

"You’re Wonder Woman, “he mumbled.

"No, " she said, “I’m really not and I’m still scared shitless of horses."

He looked up at her then his expression horrified, “Don’t swear! You don’t swear! That is…so…inappropriate and…beneath you!"

"Oh," she told him, “I’m sorry sweetheart, you’re right. Never again. I swear."

"Hmm," he said still looking up at her with a dreamy smile, “You’re Persephone and I…I brought you down here didn’t I? To this hole…" He looked around the pod, “with me?"

"No," she said, “I brought you."

He shook his head and lay on his side pulling his legs up to his chest, his fingers moving under his chin, counting something.

"I got all A’s in science…" She whispered moving over so she could lightly touch his hair.

"So did I." He said.

She had persistant backpain but on the good days and enough of the bad to make it matter, he slept drug free.

There are the bad days, the worst days. 

"I know what I know…I know what I know…I know what I know…." The words are endless and flowing and if she’ll allow it they’ll fall out of his throat for hours until it’s raw. He’s stuck on a loop, it can’t be helped. He won’t eat he’ll barely breath. He’ll piss himself rather than move. She’s seen it, she’s bathed him after, she’s changed the sheets.

She’ll kiss him until her lips are chapped, until her pants are damp with his tears. She’ll talk and she’ll talk and he’ll talk and he’ll talk until the words are just falling on top of each other. 

These are the bad days.

"I never wanted children." She told him once. They are laying side by side, like inappropriate starches day. She’d kill for crisps but she’s still too attached to her body to go outside and risk it. The idea of pot briefly entertains her and she thought for a second, “Getting there but still…no."

So they lay there side by side, he rolls over on his side, he plays with her hair and he doesn’t speak.

"I got pregnant, briefly, in college. Terribly irresponsible on my part, unforgivable on his. He was married and a professor and he should have had…but he’d been through it before. And I was so… impossibly young."

He’s wrapping a single strand of hair over and over around one finger pulling her face closer and closer to his hand.

"I was…eighteen, wasn’t I? And now I’m…what? 42? So he’d be—"

"Younger," Topher said not quite letting go of her hair, “younger than me."

"Yes," she said to him, “younger than you."

"I always wanted a little brother." He replied.

And it took her a long moment to let this sink in.

"Topher," she said, “Darling," she said, “he—it—-wouldn’t have been—"

But he was letting go of her hair now and wrapping his arms around her and his chin was on her shoulder briefly and then she was turning over and looking at him.

"You remember don’t you," She asked him," that I’m not your mother?"

"Sometimes," he told her, “usually on the days that are bad."

But this wasn’t one of those days.


End file.
